


Glimmer

by notsafeforowls



Category: DC's Legends of Tomorrow (TV)
Genre: Denial of Feelings, Insomnia, M/M, Sleeping Together
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-31
Updated: 2018-07-31
Packaged: 2019-06-19 03:37:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,075
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15501465
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/notsafeforowls/pseuds/notsafeforowls
Summary: “Don’t try to turn this into something it’s not, Pretty.”





	Glimmer

The second that Mick sees the family, he knows that the fucking mission had gone off too smoothly for there not to be a complication somewhere along the line. There’s always a complication with this time travel bullshit.

 

He stops dead in the middle of the street and Zari collides with him hard enough to send them both stumbling forward.

 

“Ow, what are you doing now –” She begins, but freezes when she follows his gaze to the family. Mick looks away when she looks at him. It’s not surprising that she recognises him. He had almost shot her. “Oh.”

 

“Don’t,” Mick says, turning away, away from Zari and away from the family. The boy is walking between his parents, clutching their hands.

 

His mom is singing something, something light and happy. Despite everything, Mick remembers this day. He remembers that it was one of the few times his dad had been sober. He remembers that they went to the fair that was just outside the city, and that they stopped at the diner at the end of this street.

 

Pancakes with chocolate sauce. His mom had turned it into an annual thing after that. They’d come to town, gone to the same diner, and his mom had bought them a plate piled so high with pancakes that they couldn’t even finish them between them. And the funny thing is, Mick doesn’t think he’s eaten pancakes with chocolate sauce since he was fifteen.

 

 

*

 

 

“Mr Rory, I must advise you again to stop and go to bed.”

 

Mick’s not sure what time it is anymore, but he ignores Gideon’s third warning. It’s definitely late, because even Zari and Ray have given up on whatever they were doing and gone to bed. They’d stopped by the workout room to ask if he was planning to sleep tonight. He’s not so sure himself. It’s likely that he’s just going to spend the night staring at the ceiling of his room. He never sleeps on nights like this, not matter how much he wants to.

 

It's probably because of the dreams, Mick knows. Or maybe they’re memories. He’s never been sure, and he’s never been brave enough to look too closely.

 

“You want to talk about it?” Nate. Of course. He’s fully dressed, probably the last one to turn in for the night, and Mick wonders if Gideon ordered him out of the library.

 

“Do I look like I want to talk about it?” He hits the bag harder, just in case Nate doesn’t get it.

 

Nate’s silent for so long that Mick thinks that he’s left. He’s surprised when Nate steps around to the other side of the punching bag and holds it in place.

 

For a while, the only sounds in the room are Mick’s harsh breaths, accompanied by the sound of his fists hitting the bag again and again. He’s half concentrating on the bag, half watching the way that every blow to the bag jolts Nate back a bit. It’s annoying, distracting, and Mick eventually drops his hands and begins removing the wraps – which, he realises, is probably why Nate’s sticking around.

 

That’s confirmed when Mick takes a quick look at Nate and finds him watching him with that damn expression he always gets at times like these. The concerned-apprehensive-determined one that makes Mick want to tell him to go away, because any normal person should be running a mile right now. Nate isn’t, because he never knows when to let things go. Instead, he walks closer.

 

“You could come to my room,” Nate offers, tucking his hands into his pockets.

 

“I’m not in the mood.”

 

Nate ducks his head. “I didn’t mean for sex, I was talking about sleeping.”

 

Shaking his head, Mick shoves the wraps in his pocket. They don’t do that. Mick doesn’t even stay the night after they have sex. Hell, half the time it’s nothing more than a quick blowjob or handjob when no one else is around. “Don’t try to turn it into something it isn’t, Pretty. We’re not like that; it’s just sex.”

 

He tries to ignore the hurt that flashes across Nate’s face before Mick turns away. They fuck, and then they go back to their own beds. They don’t _sleep together_ like some kind of couple. It’s not like that, and Mick’s always been honest about that. It’s not his fault that Nate thinks it’s more than that or that he wants more than that.

 

“Of course, sure,” Nate says brightly, fake and flimsy.

 

By the time that Mick’s finished pushing down the guilt that’s curling in the pit of his stomach and looks towards him again, Nate is gone and the lights suddenly feel far too bright.

 

He sighs and heads for the bathroom to shower.

 

 

*

 

 

Mick’s not sure why he doesn’t go back to his room after showering. He walks through the Waverider’s corridors, damp towel in one hand, wondering what the hell he’s even doing, and what he thinks he’s going to accomplish by doing it. Well, Mick knows one thing that he’s going to accomplish – he’s going to avoid the temptation of the lighter he still has buried under all the other clutter he’s collected. But that’s easy to avoid if he just goes anywhere else in the ship.

 

He doesn’t have an answer by the time he reaches Nate’s room. And he doesn’t have a chance to change his mind before the door slides open. Mick glares at the ceiling. Fucking Gideon. At this point, she probably knows more about them than anyone else.

 

The first thing Mick notices is the copy of _Of Mice and Men_ that he loaned to Nate months ago. It’s sitting on the table beside the bed, on top of a history book that looks old enough to be a historical artefact itself. There’s a bookmark between the back cover and the final pages – which means that Nate’s finished it, and has just never given it back to him.

 

And the realisation that he knows about stupid little things like what Nate does with bookmarks after he finishes books makes something in the pit of Mick’s stomach twist in a way that has nothing to do with lack of sleep or seeing his parents.

 

Nate’s sprawled across the far side of the bed with the sheets riding low on his hips. Even from here, Mick can see the cluster of freckles on his left shoulder, the fading mark that Mick had left just under them a few days ago. And he knows that Nate has a scar near the base of his spine that he refuses to let Gideon fix, and that Mick can follow the freckles scattered across his skin right down to that scar. He has, more than once.

 

It takes him too long to realise that Nate’s awake and watching him.

 

“You knew I’d come.” Mick throws the towel into the laundry basket beside the door. He strips down and leaves the rest of his clothes piled on the chair at the desk.

 

Nate shrugs before he gestures towards the empty side of the bed. “Hoped. I, uh, wasn’t sure you’d show up or when you would, that’s why I told Gideon to let you in if you did.”

 

“I’m not going to sleep much,” Mick warns him as he gets into the bed. It’s not that he doesn’t trust Nate – he’s on the very short list of people Mick does trust, and most of them are on the ship – but he’s lived through this sort of day enough times that he already knows what kind of night is ahead.

 

He half-expects Nate to curl up on his side of the bed, the way he usually does when Mick’s leaving, but Nate curls up beside him instead, tucking one hand up against Mick’s side. After months of having sex, even if they don’t sleep together, the strange coolness of Nate’s hands (a side effect of the steel serum) aren’t a surprise, but Mick can’t help the way he jerks away from it anyway.

 

“You and your freezing lizard hands,” he mutters, because the serum’s side effects have always reminded him of the way reptiles need their environment to keep them warm. Nate laughs, sliding his hand under Mick, trying to warm it up. At least he’s not putting his cold hands anywhere else.

 

Nate seems to share that thought because he smirks, as if he’s remembering what happened the first and only time he thought it would be a good idea to put his hands down Mick’s pants and grab his ass without warming his hands up first.

 

 

*

 

 

Mick sleeps fitfully, never for more than half an hour at a time, and he always wakes up expecting to find something burning. He swears he can even smell the smoke.

 

Instead, he wakes up to Nate. Nate wakes up the first couple of times, mumbling something that Mick doesn’t catch (and which Mick isn’t even sure are words) before he closes his eyes again and goes back to sleep. The other times, Mick lies awake and listen to Nate snoring quietly in the otherwise silent room. It’s not quite soothing but it’s strangely comforting.

 

When he finally wakes up again at a decent time – there’s an image on the wall which now shows a bright, sunny sky instead of a darkened one – it’s to Nate curled up against him, his forehead pressed against Mick’s shoulder, and his left arm thrown across Mick’s chest. The tips of his fingers rest against Mick’s left arm, right against one of the places where the nerve damage isn’t quite as bad and he can actually feel touch. He wonders absently if it’s entirely coincidental, or if Nate’s learned at some point exactly where Mick still has sensation and that’s why he’s touching him that way.

 

It’s safer if it’s just a coincidence, but a horrible part of Mick wants it to be because Nate knows him. It’s the same horrible part of him that’s telling him that this is now much more than sex. Now, they sleep together like a damn couple. It’s terrible. In fact, Mick’s sure that if Snart hadn’t gone and died to save them all, he’d be the first one to make a snide comment about Mick having a damn boyfriend.

 

He’s wondering if he can maybe slip out before Nate wakes up when Nate stir beside him.

 

“Morning.” Nate yawns but shows no signs that he’s planning to do anything more than stretch in the near future. He sighs and presses a lazy kiss to Mick’s shoulder.

 

Despite him apparently being barely awake, there’s something a bit too deliberate in his actions, and Mick realises that he’s testing the waters. Slowly, so slowly that Mick almost makes a comment about it, Nate moves his hand so that he’s no longer touching the scars, but resting his hand across Mick’s.

 

There’s a second where Mick can see the options laid out in front of him. He pulls away, Nate looks hurt, and Mick leaves feeling no better than he did last night. He pulls away, Nate looks hurt, and Mick distracts him and hopes that he won’t remember what was happening before the sex until they’re in a situation where it can’t be brought up.

 

Or – and this is the one that weighs heavy on Mick’s mind, and that he’s been thinking of on and off throughout the night whenever he woke up to Nate’s soft snores beside him – he takes Nate’s hand.

 

So Mick does it. He entwines his fingers loosely with Nate’s, and doesn’t even try to ignore the way that his heart does a very pleasant flip in his chest when Nate’s face lights up.

 

“Does this mean that we _are_ like that?” Nate asks, pushing himself up a little until he’s half leaning on Mick’s chest. “Just so I know what to expect from now on. I mean, we haven’t even been on a real date or anything and I need to be wined and dined if I’m going to be a boyfriend instead of a fuck buddy.”

 

But he’s grinning like an idiot and Mick sighs, because he’s never going to hear the end of this from anyone, and despite the lack of sleep and the snide little voice in the back of his head that’s mocking him for this? It’s actually pretty damn nice to wake up with someone.

**Author's Note:**

> Fills the 'insomnia' square on my hc_bingo card.


End file.
